Western Madagascar - Ankarafantsika National Park individual tour extension

You will be met and transferred to Antananarivo Airport to check in for the flight to Mahajanga on the north-west coast. On arrival, you will be met by your professional, experienced, English-speaking Malagasy guide and your driver. Travel 2 ½ hours inland along a good road to Ankarafantsika National Park, where you stay for 3 nights in the rustic Tia Asity Lodge OR Gite de Ampijoroa, or Blue Vanga Lodge, all meals included. Guided day and night walks should reveal plenty of wildlife.

The first of two full days in which to make the most of Ankarafantsika and seek out the wonderful array of mammals, birds and reptiles that find protection here. Your time will include a boat trip on Lac Ravelobe where a key attraction is the critically endangered Madagascar fish eagle, one of the world’s 6 rarest raptors. You will also be taken to see the sandstone canyon and a grove of the large northern Malagasy baobab Adansonia madagascariensis. An added bonus is being able to see the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust’s largest Madagascar-based project site, ‘Projet Angonoka’, where the 4 endemic Malagasy land tortoises and its one endemic freshwater turtle, are being bred in captivity as part of the DWCT’s ‘SAFE’ (Saving Animals From Extinction) programme. Your guides will take you along the trails – graded as easy for the most part – for day and night walks.

Your second full day to enjoy this wonderful national park.

After a final forest walk in Ankarafantsika, travel back this afternoon to Mahajanga to stay overnight in Coco Lodge with all meals included.

In the morning, you will be collected from Coco Lodge, and taken for a boat excursion into the wide, red Betsiboka River Delta, where birders go to seek rare endemic species such as Madagascar teal, Humblot’s heron and Madagascar white ibis. Transfer to Mahajanga airport to check in for the Tsaradia flight back to Antananarivo.